Last week Shaun traveled to the University of Jyväskylä to give a talk and visit Pauliina Ahti, Silva Uusi-Heikkilä, and Anna Kuparinen. The trip was filled with lots of great conversation about fishy science, Finnish treats, and beer! Thanks to all for an amazing visit!

This week Shaun visited friends and colleagues Katja Enberg and Christian Jörgensen in Bergen, Norway. While there he gave at talk at the Institute of Marine Research and drank far too much whiskey. Thank you Katja and Christian for being such amazing hosts!

Yesterday Shaun Killen made the not-so-long trek to Edinburgh to participate in a double-bill seminar set focusing on nature-inspired engineering. The event was organised by Ignazio Viola (School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh) and Shaun spoke alongside Kiran Ramesh (School of Engineering, University of Glasgow). Kiran, Ignazio, and Shaun have recently received funding from a Carnegie Collaborative Grant to examine how fish swimming biomechanics may help inform the design and arrangement of wave power turbines.

The seminar event was a lot of fun with some great discussion with people in attendance from both engineering and biological sciences. Unfortunately for Shaun, however, he was dismayed when Kiran informed him that large dragons could never fly with flapping wings because the the power of the leading edge vortices required to provide the lift would need to be so powerful that they would basically tear the wings from the body. Dreams shattered.

This week Shaun Killen spent a few days at University College Cork, Ireland, where he was visiting the lab of Thomas Reed. It was a fantastic few days with lots of great conversations (and a few pints) with the students and staff of the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences. While there Shaun gave a talk on our recent work looking at links between sociability and metabolic traits in fish.

Davide Thambithurai recently returned from a trip to Trondheim, Norway, where he visited the lab of Fredrik Jutfelt at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. While there he gave a talk about his recent experiments on the vulnerability of individual fish to passive fishing methods.

Last week biologists from all over the globe descended upon Brighton in the UK for the annual meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology. As always the conference was jammed with incredible talks and was a great chance to catch up with old friends.

Our Institute at the University of Glasgow was particularly well-represented with a contingent of 14 staff and students in attendance. This included several talks and posters from the Killen lab and collaborators as well as a highly successful session organised by Shaun Killen and Stefano Marras on The Role of Individual Variation in the Behaviour of Animal Groups. We're already looking forward to next year in Gothenberg, Sweden!

Master's student Brooke Allan presents her poster on social interactions and metabolic traits in minnows.

Ph.D. student Julie Nati is caught mid-blink as she presents here poster on how invasive bullheads and native stone loaches may differ in their hypoxia tolerance.

M.Res. student Ben Cooper giving a presentation on his work looking at how shoaling tendencies in sticklebacks may cause them to experience deviations from their individual temperatures preferences.

Killen lab collaborator and visiting Ph.D. student Matt Guzzo (University of Manitoba, Canada) presents his work looking at how brief but repeated foraging forays into warm temperatures may affect the growth and metabolism of lake trout.

Ph.D. student Tiffany Armstrong (co-supervised with Kevin Parsons) presents her work on how variation in maternal egg brooding quality may affect the social behaviour of offspring.

Killen lab collaborator and Ph.D. student Lauren Nadler (James Cooke University, Australia) giving a talk on her work looking at how exposure to shoal-mates can reduce metabolic rates in tropical damselfish. Congrats also to Lauren for winning this year's Young Scientist Award!!

Shaun Killen talks about his recent work in Brazil with Andrew Esbaugh, Tadeu Rantin, and David McKenzie on social air-breathing in African sharptooth catfish.